The upgrade path as we know it is dead. You'll be buying a new CPU and motherboard together in every future upgrade as Intel and AMD pack more into their CPUs. Intel has no need to respin the 45nm quads - they are cool enough for its own needs, meet the market price it wants from them and it doesn't want to waste engineering time to churn out a respin when SandyBridge is two quarters away - It gives INTEL an upgrade path!
Thanks Rich. I realise things have been heading this way, industry wide, for a little while. I now Intel don't give a **** about me, any more than any other corporation. I just thought that maybe I'd missed something, with dual and hex going tock, but not quad. It used to be you could usually see two CPUs in any given mobo over 2 or so years. A CPU upgrade was a valid option, but as you say, it ain't any more. It's a shame, but entirely predictable from our money grabbing friends. They may have the inferior architecture, but at least AMD have looked after their customers a little better with AM3. Not that it's enough to make me wanna buy one!! I suppose the only other thing than can be considered is RAM and keeping that when you change mobo....
Theres a slim chance that bulldozer will work in an AM3 board, as its rumoured to use 'AM3 Revision 2'. On a tangent here but there's little reason why new designs cannot be made to work in 'legacy' sockets; socket F screams it from the rooftops. But designers will not want to be constrained by the old socket and so bring out a new one. Shoehorning new into old can't go on forever but somekind of lifetime for a board is more than possible. Even if you kept the ram by that stage it would look too slow with hideous latencies compared to even the bang-for-buck stuff that would have become available by then. Plus it may require voltages that newer chips may not like (too high).
I suspect AMD will ditch the AM3 packaging fairly soon. Bulldozer is said to be modular, so slapping on more core units will net you more power for little work, but will take up more space. Maybe a newer, slightly larger socket to make sure they can accommodate easily when they want to brute force their way into people's systems. Plus, am I the only one bored of the AM2/AM2+/AM3 940 pin socket? I know it's an odd thing to get bored about, but getting new little things to look at and play with and discuss is nice. Although part of me suspects that AMD will keep pushing the AM3 packaging for as long as possible. Keeping people buying new CPUs and keeping the old motherboards means that serial upgraders will be drawn towards them. But it would be nice to see something new.
In most cases, socket changes are at least partially warranted. LGA775 - they needed the IMC to largely increase performance for Nehalem, which LGA775 could not provide for. To carry on using LGA775 would be a bad decision on intel's part and extending the lifetime of an already-5-year-old-socket would have been pretty much pointless anyway. Socket F - I'm not sure what you are talking about - Socket F was superseded only this year, and the upgrade was to provide DDR3 support. Considering that Socket F is a server socket, the upgrade opportunities are not perhaps necessary. It might be possible to increase the lifetime of an old board, but it depends what value it offers. AM2 > AM2+ > AM3 has certainly not offered much to the consumer.
AMD need a new socket, whereas Intel just seem to build a new socket to force you into buying a new MB (with chipset from intel). im quite happy with my x58 - should last me for at least 3 more years.
No probs. On the plus side at least you get to use your memory again! WOO! All AMD Fusion stuff will require a new socket too I think. AMD need to go LGA as well.
your kidding, right? Socket F went all the way through from k8 to k10.5, dual core 65nm to 6 core 45nm. K8 started out on socket 939 if you remember.
